any bad sleeping baby support groups [Archive] - Bub Hub Pregnancy & Parenting Forum

misskittyfantastico

11-04-2006, 14:07

It's no fun sometimes is it?:thumbsdown: My DD has had some dreadful stages sleep-wise, so I know where you're coming from! I have also learnt that things do change and sometimes for the better! My DD slept for 1 hr IN A ROW today!!! Her usual day sleeps are between 20 and 40 mins.....anyways I'm always here to chat, feel free to pm me if you want:)

bubbles28

11-04-2006, 14:33

Don't worry you're not alone.
My Ds is 14mths and has only slept through the night a handfull of times. He generally wakes anywhere between 1 and 6 times in a night.
I really can't wait untill he starts sleeping through because some days I'm just SOOOO tired.
Hope it gets better for you too.
Pm me if you want to chat

Smurfette

11-04-2006, 16:09

Welcome to my world. Liv is 7 months old and has NEVER slept through the night. I actually posted a thread in sleep and settling yesterday. We are here for you. Pm if you ever need to chat or add me to msn, it can get really frustrating sometimes.:banghead:
:hugs: to you.

Jem

11-04-2006, 16:13

i know how your feeling... ds1 is going on to 2 and a half.. and he still wakes between 1 - 6 times a night .... im so lucky that dp will get up to him... as i still have to tend to ds2 who wakes just as much as ds1 :o

Crazy Monkey

11-04-2006, 16:28

How old is your bubs?

I think we've all been there, thankfully, we are in a pretty good sleeping stage at the moment.. I hope it lasts:fingerscrossed: I know that when DS is teething, all his sleeps go out of wack and can be a real nightmare...

All the best.. PM or MSN message me if you need to talk...

buzzing bee

12-04-2006, 08:33

Thanks for all the replies, it is helpful to know I am not the only one struggling with a frequent waker. DD is almost 10 mths old and is teething at the moment but seems to be taking ages and sometimes I think that it's not teeth and she isn't going to change. The problem at the moment is she is unsettled and when she wakes she rolls continuously, mostly every few minutes. She hates it on her back and acts like a stranded turtle, this wakes her up and then she cries. Controlled crying won't work because she cries herself awake not asleep.

I find that if you don't do cc than you really have nobody to talk to about sleeping probs as everyone just thinks bad sleeper = cc.

Anyway that was a bit long winded

Thanx again for the support

Smurfette

12-04-2006, 09:11

[ The problem at the moment is she is unsettled and when she wakes she rolls continuously, mostly every few minutes. She hates it on her back and acts like a stranded turtle, this wakes her up and then she cries.

Sorry, but this just made me laugh. I had a really funny image in my head when I read that.

ozzysmum

12-04-2006, 10:00

ozzy's a shocking sleeper :( for the past 4 months he has woken between 3 and 8 times a night, sometimes every half an hour. it's so exhausting. during the day he might sleep for an hour in the morning and perhaps an hour in the afternoon and that's about it. once when he was really tiny he stayed awake for more than 30 hours straight!
earlier this week he slept 3 nights in a row for no discernable reason from 8-6 - i couldn't believe it and started hoping maybe we were onto a new path, but then the last two nights he has woken up at least twice and is back to wanting to get up at 5am - not a happy time of day for mummy ;)
i'm so glad to see it's not just me. we tried controlled 'comforting' for a couple of days but it made me physically sick and resulted in a very stressed out baby who slept even worse than usual. ozzy also cries himself awake, emymygirl - again glad to see it's not just me!
and he's not even teething yet... i'm sure that's going to be even more fun :rolleyes:

Crazy Monkey

12-04-2006, 10:57

My Ds is also one that would cry himself awake... I sort of tried the CC thing but no matter how long DS cried for, he was no closer to getting to sleep...

This is what we do at bedtime:
* Our bedtime routine - bath, breastfeed, book, then its into bed..
* I walk out of the room
* If crying starts, I wait about 3-5 minutes, usually go and do something so the time goes quickly
* Then I go back in, lay DS down, tell him it bedtime... I then help settle him with patting and shushing
* If DS keeps getting up and wriggling around, I walk out.. Again for about 3-5 minutes

Usually works quite well... A bit a bonjela helps if teething is a problem..

I hope this helps someone...

Good luck

BecH

15-04-2006, 04:51

It is such a relief to know other people have problems with sleeping. My DD is nearly 8 months and has never slept through. She just get her two bottom teeth one after another and I haven't slept properly in longer than I remember. She slept from 7.30 until 1.30 last night and I felt like celebrating:smiliedance:

I found a website www.askdrsears.com then go into "Got sleep". He is a Doctor who had problems with one of his later children and explains sleeping patterns that can bring a bit of a feeling of relief.

I wish I had solutions but you can try these the Child health told me to try:
-sleep routine with music
-I wrap my daughter in a sheet but just by wrapping it around under her arms, and not very tightly. She hated being wrapped properly because she couldn't free her arms and she felt too restricted.
-Introduce a small cuddly toy or blanket when you are putting them to sleep.
-Try and put them in their cots just as there eyes are closing, but pick them up if they awake and just keep persisting.
-If they are on solids, Avocado, and sweet potato are low GI and will keep them full longer
- My daughter also has a bottle at night on top of her breastmilk and this has gotten me a few more hours rest.

Or when you get desperate, I am currently sleeping in my daughters room on a matress and she justs comes in with me for a feed and then back into her cot. I find I lose less sleep this way.

Sorry it is so long, Good luck

ozzysmum

15-04-2006, 08:06

just to add some fun into my tiredness, ozzy has gotten himself his first cold :( he all snot and coughing at the mo and we've been up since 3 :sleeping: waiting for the chemist to open so i can get some baby vicks...

jessgray

15-04-2006, 08:53

my son is very hard at getting to sleep at night.he will try and fight the fact he is tired for as long as he can.he is walking so i dont know what to do

JorBai

15-04-2006, 19:29

HI,

I am pretty lucky that my bub is a great sleeper at night but in the beginning he would not sleep a wink all day.

One suggestion could be to contact your local Community centre and see if they run a Sleep Clinic or Tressilian. I know these people can really help. You can either go into the day clinic or if yours is a bad case then they will refer you to a overnight clinic.

Good Luck with your bub, im sure once the teething settles everything will change but if your not coping speak to the clinic and see if they can help!

Leanne

buzzing bee

16-04-2006, 14:47

Hi all

There seems to be quite a few mums with limited sleep. I am glad that we can talk about it. My dd has slept better the last couple of nights and her 2nd tooth has just cut so fingers crossed the worse may be over for the time being. I have the no cry sleep solution and i am using the plan to get dd from being rocked to sleep to doing it herself. I am figuring that if she can put herself to sleep she should be able to comfort herself at night and go back to sleep quickly. :thumbsup:

ozzysmum

16-04-2006, 22:00

hopefully not a stupid question but do the clinics tend to be free or really expensive? we're coping at the moment but if the path ozzy is going down continues i may look into it. i've done so much reading and research on sleeping and babies and nothing seems to work with him.
he's great at going to sleep at night but staying asleep is a whole different ball game. his day sleeps are getting better but i usually need a nap so put him into our bed with me - don't want that to become a habit he wants at night too, though!

Starlet

16-04-2006, 22:10

If there is any such groups around, count me in.

DS1 is 2 and 2 months and has NEVER slept through the night.

Smurfette

18-04-2006, 00:12

Ozzysmum, from memory you said ozzy is 8 months? How is he going with his solids? I found that once Liv was eating regular solid meals was the time she started sleeping longer. She is still bf which is quite often going to be an issue with sleeping as their tummys aren't full enough. Maybe up his calorie intake, it could help?

buzzing bee

18-04-2006, 09:16

The clinics are free as they are run by Queensland Health in Qld and the public hospital system in other states. I am going to one soon, which is offered as a group education session to start with I am told. The only problem Iam having with this is that they are based on controlled crying. We did controlled comforting last night to try and stop dd continual rolling and it seemed to work at first but she ended up having a very unsettled night.

I still rock dd to sleep so I know if I decide I am going to control comfort I am going to have to do it atleast 7 times a day to be consistent.

It is so hard to know what to do

logan's mum

18-04-2006, 10:15

I have an 11.5 month old who has never slept through the night. Four wakes is his average at the moment, but this is an improvement from 7! And most of the time I can put his dummy back in and pat his bottom and he goes back to sleep (most of the time). But it is still very tiring. I think if you haven't lived it (eg those whose bubs slept through from an early age) you just don't understand what it's like to be constantly sleep deprived.

What I hate is that I now find myself feeling really angry at mums who complain that they had a bad night - bub woke twice maybe - and that they are soooo tired. I then find out that their bub has been "sleeping through" since 6 weeks and this is a one off. I feel like yelling at them to wake up to themselves and stop being so selfish. I hate that i feel this way and feel really guilty about it after - I mean they probably ARE legitimately tired as they aren't used to getting up! Does anyone else experience this?

I tried the stay over sleep clinic thing but found them really rigid and inflexible. Logan has severe reflux and they didn't seem to understand the disease process or want to even consider altering their plans to take it into consideration - one nurse looked me in the eye and told me that it was OK to let him cry on his own so much that he became so distressed that he vomited - in a reflux baby - can you believe it? It's the wrong thing to do in any baby I say, but especially bad in a reflux baby!! Needless to say I refused to tow the line with their methods, which was then greeted with a "well he'll probably never be a great sleeper then" from another staff member. What the? I was rocked to sleep and until I became a mummy I didn't have any sleep issues! And I settle logan in his cot! I was furious.

So yes if such a support group exists or anyone wants to form one please count me in.

Cheers,
Bec.

kadownie

18-04-2006, 15:18

There is a yahoo group- it's called gentlesleep. It promotes gentle settling techniques. I too have a restless and wakeful toddler- he's a lovely boy but he doesn't sleep well at night. It is frustrating when people tell me that I'm doing things wrong and I should let him cry it out. I don't want to do that as I feel that it would negatively impact on his emotional development. His twin on the other hand sleeps quite well at night- funny isn't it- how you can treat 2 babies the sane from birth- yet they behave so differently

Chellby

18-04-2006, 19:16

my bub Kai, is eight months old. By 6 months he had only slept through the night a handful of times. He would still wake between 1 and 6 times a night and only go back to sleep when I fed him. he only ever catnapped in the day, we nicknamed him catnap Kai! I was so tired from being a human dummy...So we started the teach to sleep routine..
dinner (solids)
bath with dad
bedtime bf..then put him in his cot awake, first time he cried fo about 45 mins. i went back in to his room at intervals picked him up and gave him cuddles, but found this made it harder for both of us. Each night he cried less and less when I left the room, then one night I put him down, he rolled over and he went straight to sleep! Sucess! or so I thought......this only lasted about a week, and then he would sleep till 1 and wake for a feed and then wake again at 4. Now he wakes about 3 times a night. I usually bring him back to bed with us, but then I have a restless sleep so I put him back in his cot and ten minutes later he wakes up again and I have to feed all over again!! he still gets fed about three times a night and he is eight months old! Now i have learnt to have catnaps in the day too.:thumbsdown:

ozzysmum

18-04-2006, 19:37

livismorris - ozzy is 7 months and i was hoping that solids would make the difference but if anything they've made it worse! it doesn't seem to matter what times i feed him at or how much, he's still waking. we are graduating from puree to mush this week, though, so we'll see how that goes. i still breastfeed a lot too - he gets a huge feed in the morning (i try to hold off til 6.30-7am so if he does by chance sleep all night he won't wake up hungry at 5;)) and then again after morning solids then again at lunchtime solids. a 3.30 pm feed, a bottle of formula and top up with bf if still hungry at 7.30 before sleep... and generally at least one feed (often 2) in the night if he refuses to go back to sleep any other way. i could probably introduce another feed during the day and see how it goes.

logan's mum - i think we all know how you feel. i remember a mum saying to me "i'm so tired, my baby sleeps from 6-6 and i just can't handle getting up that early every day". i could have happily throttled her:devil6: at least we know we are not alone - that plenty of other mums are going through exactly the same thing. and what a horrid experince for you at the sleep clinic! i have seen that lots of classes for settling etc all follow the same patterns and frankly, once you've tried wrapping, rocking, leaving to cry, gentle music, bedtime bath etc you don't need someone telling you how to recognise your baby's tired signs :rolleyes:

i've noticed here that a lot of us have a reluctance to use cc techniques and some of us have tried only to have the baby revert back to their usual pattern regardless. i'm sure for some babies it works great but obviously there are those that are just going to be night-wakers or refuse to sleep at certain times of day etc. good luck to all us poor mums functioning on 4 hours worth of sleep (if we're lucky) in a 24 hour period!

sorry for the :ecomcity:

Tea Lady

19-04-2006, 12:04

My nearly 15 month old DD is a bit of a shocker too. Every time we try to do something about her sleep something happens (illness, teething ) so I feel like we get nowhere :banghead: . Anyway, I just wanted to say I feel your pain ladies, it's no fun!!

buzzing bee

21-04-2006, 09:07

Just wondering if anyone wants to swap msn so we can chat to eachother or if we live near eachother we could meet up.

I live in the Gold Coast Hinterland and my msn is tammyp0004@yahoo.com.au

Tammy:)

Priscilla

24-04-2006, 22:18

Bec, I'm right behind you in the anger stakes!!!!

Cameron is also one of those babies who has never slept through the night. I remember in hospital just after I gave birth, the midwives crowned him "The Unsettled One" as he just wouldn't sleep!

Anyway, it's not in anyway personal, but I too have had it up to here with mums' who get melodramatic about having to wake once during the night when it's a once off - after all these months of sleep through. Yes, you are right - I do believe they could be tired since they're not used to it but I wish they would spare a thought for those of us who have to do it not once, not twice but AT LEAST four times a night, EVERY night since their little one was born.

The last couple of nights, C has been up every half an hour. AND, at 4-4:30am he awake and wants to get out of bed. ARRRGGHHH..... it takes me about 2 hours (like it did last two nights/mornings) to resettle him, by which time, it's 6ish and it's time to start the day!!!

Oh and the sleep clinics..... I called them to enquire, and the 'consultant' I spoke to started to speak to me in a really patronizing manner when I told her that I'm not sure about taking the CC road. Then proceeded to tell me how I'd do my back in and how my job is to teach bubs to sleep and how if I don't Cameon will NEVER be a good sleeper. Makes me wonder the type of "support" they would be offering me when they couldn't even reassure me sincerely over the phone!

I'm sorry I've rambled (those of you who've read my other posts will know I tend to ramble). But I'm glad there's someone out there who gets angered too. I know for me, there's an element of envy and a touch of jealousy toward mums' who have to get up once during the night after months of sleeping through, but oh well.

PS, I hope I've not offended anyone..... I apologise if I have!!!

mysonroger

29-04-2006, 20:24

vanillabean

29-04-2006, 20:30

My DD is 14 months old. We have had very good sleeping stages and now a very bad stage (Hopefully teeth - I can feel a bulging molar) that has now been going for about 10 weeks. The amount of waking varies. We have better nights than others. Just the other night (of course when DH was on night shift), I was up on and off for about 4 hours (every 1/2 to 1 hour). Other nights just a drink and pop the dummy back in and she is back off to sleep. I am hoping it ends soon. I do recall my DS went through it too.

vicsta

30-04-2006, 16:10

Our 16mnth old goes to sleep with a Bf at about 7 - 7.30 but always wakes in the night and comes in with us, then i never sleep deeply with her in the bed. No1 never slept in her own bed, but she eventually did at around 2 1/2, No.2 i was adament that she would not sleep in our bed and she has been a great sleeper from day 1, but No.3 back in with us, I think she has slept through maybe a handfull of times in 16 months, but could be worse at least she goes back to sleep when she is in the middle, she would probably get better with CC but I am always too tired in the middle of the night and just bring her in with us, so yes ladies I too feel your yawns, but hopefully by the time the are 10 they will sleep better, i know it worked when my eldest went to school.

bec05

08-05-2006, 16:38

I'd like to join this support group too! I often feel a bit down after going to my mums group where everyone else's baby sleeps from 7-7 or some such thing. They are all full of advice and I know they mean well but sometimes I wish they'd take my DD home and try applying it. I just don't believe all babies are the same and some just aren't good sleepers no matter how hard you try!!!! Like so many of you, DD has never been an 'easy' sleeper (even in hospital she wouldn't sleep wrapped up in her little bassinet like the other babies - she only fell asleep nestled against me!). Now she is 9 months and still waking many times a night (every hour on bad nights), and day sleeps are all over the place, sometimes 20 mins, occasionally an hour if I'm really lucky. Her latest trick though is standing up and shaking the cot bars, either laughing (if I'm there) or crying (if I'm not). So putting her to bed has become very drawn out. At one stage we did, in desperation (exhausted & depressed) resort to CC, though I hated it. We thought it made a difference initially but then she got worse than ever. I think I'm more resigned now to the fact there is not a miracle cure (only time maybe), but it is still hard listening to other people's advice all the time. Particularly when they have only 1 dream child and don't have the faintest what you're going through. So here's to all of us!! I'm sure there must be an upside eventually to all the hard yards - maybe these sleepless babies are just extra alert or smart or will be wonderful kids or something??:fingerscrossed: .

Smurfette

09-05-2006, 21:44

Welcome bec05. Olivia has never been a great sleeper, although I do see huge improvements all the time. Last night she slept from 7-2:25 woke for a feed and then woke at 6. This is one of the bests nights we have ever had. Its funny, tonight she will probably be a little terror. I just don't understand why its so inconsistent. She used to wake every hour on the hour, every night. This wasnt so bad because at least I knew I wasnt going to get any sleep. Its hard when you have a couple ( never more than 2) good sleeps in a row and then WHAM you are back to ****ty sleeps:banghead: and she ends up in our bed *although, I do secretly love her in with me shhhh don't tell anyone*.:laughing:
Why oh why oh why :confused:

CIPOs Slave

12-05-2006, 18:36

When my first DS was born I didn't know what everyone was talking about when they said they had problems with sleep. He slept through the night from 6 weeks and even put himself to sleep on most occasions. So, for the first 8 months of his life, I was a well rested, well adjusted mother. Then he started teething!!!!!! We were adament that we would not CC, so we tried everything else. After a while, we realised that we were putting too much pressure on ourselves with the whole sleep thing. We were sick of everyone telling us to let him cry it out and we felt like failures with all our other attempts. So we decided, not to worry about it. If he fell asleep on us in front of the telly breastfeeding, and wouldn't go down in his cot, we just put him alseep next to us in the lounge room on one of those kids couches (he would sleep if we laid next to him). We have since had another two and have adopted the same method with them. We put them to sleep in our arms, put them to bed. If they wake, they come into bed with us, or if it is before we go to bed, we just put them back to sleep either by holding or breastfeeding and put them back to bed. My four year old has been sleeping on his own, putting himself to sleep for a year now, my daughter goes to sleep in our arms, but sleeps all night in her own bed and our 11 month old spends most of his time in bed with us (but the first part of the night in his cot). We still have some tough nights but mostly, we all get a good nights sleep.

maad

17-05-2006, 11:37

I have 11mth old twins DS has never been much of a sleeper and would scream the house down trying to get him to sleep. DD was better and would go of to sleep with a bottle, wake once for bottle or dummy and sleep till 6-7am. All has changed with teething etc. DS & DD now go to sleep with bottle in cot pretty well most nights not all, but wake between 3-10 times anight nearly always end up in bed with me. Doesn't leave much room to move and not a very settled sleep but only way I can get any. I have been back at work 5mths and need to get some sleep. Tried CC didn't work for DS as had croup and DD just screamed more.
I know how tried everyone is and can only hope our little bundles of joy decide to sleep better sometime soon.

Maad.